Delegates from the Marshall Islands warned today that their nation could vanish beneath the Pacific Ocean within 50 years if nothing serious is done to combat global warming.
Climate envoy Tina Stege said that the islands were already feeling the effects of climate change, including longer and more intense droughts and rising sea levels, and she urged world leaders to act before they disappear.
The islands, which have a population of 60,000 people, one of the world’s first countries to be severely affected by climate change, with 40 per cent of all buildings in its capital Majuro at risk from the rising level of the ocean.
Ms Stege expressed hope that the outcome of the Cop26 summit in Glasgow would help save her homeland.
She told Sky News: “We are going to need to adapt in a transformative way and we are going to need support to do that and so we really need to see an addition for finance.
“I can’t accept the outcome that the Marshall Islands will be history in 50 years. I don’t think it’s acceptable to anyone in this world to write off a country, Stege said.
This story was published at Sky News on 31 October 2021, reposted via PACNEWS.
